January 20, 2015

We've waited a whole year, but we can't wait any longer: It's time for another Brussels Sprouts recipe.

Sometimes, we think we could do a monthly or even weekly Brussels recipe here on The Bitten Word, given how frequently we eat them (at least a couple pounds a week) and with such variation.

But we largely spare you our Brussels addiction. Despite our seemingly insatiable appetite for the vegetable, there is, we fear, a limit for most of you. But for today, we're all going to revel in Brussels' glory, with this recipe we plucked out of the latest Food & Wine: Brussels Sprouts with Sausage and Cumin.

January 15, 2015

It's that time of year when we look into our pantry and think, "Who in the world bought all this stuff?" You see, our cupboards right now are a bit like the island of misfit toys.

There are six kinds of mustard. Three kinds of anchovies. Seven (!) kinds of nuts. And so. much. orzo. Someone needs a Cupboard Cleanout.

Though we love digging into our cupboard and making a complete meal out of it, we found this week that there are perils to doing that. Sometimes, the stuff in your pantry is just too old.

Case in point? We planned to make this Spanish Chorizo, Kale and Cranberry Bean Soup, a Bobby Flay recipe from the current issue of Food Network Magazine. We thought it sounded delicious, and we were especially happy because it would be a good excuse to use some beans we already had on hand.

January 13, 2015

We were simultaneously stumped and excited by this recipe for Roasted and Charred Broccoli with Peanuts when we got the January Bon Appétit.

We love broccoli (and probably each eat about 3 heads a week during the winter), and we adore peanuts in all forms (except maybe boiled, but we still wouldn't really turn those down). But the two of them combined?

Sure, why not. We'll try anything once.

Plus, this recipe gave us an excuse to use a pantry ingredient that's getting a lot of play in our house these days: nutritional yeast.

Really, roast chicken is not a hard sell for us. It's the meal equivalent of slipping on a pair of sweat pants (or as they're called in our house, "fat pants"), crawling under the covers, and marathoning Gilmore Girls (please tell us you know the full series is available on Netflix, and please tell us you're watching).

And a roast chicken paired with a delicious sauce? We're IN.

That's why we chose this dish of Slow-Roasted Chicken Parts with Shallot-Garlic Pan Sauce from America's Test Kitchen as our first recipe of 2015.

January 06, 2015

We are so excited to start cooking in 2015! But first let's take a quick look back at 2014.

In our ongoing quest to test-drive food magazine recipes, we tried out a lot of dishes last year. Some were good; some were duds. Here are the best things we made all year long, in chronological order. First up are our favorite food magazine recipes, followed by a few other favorites from last year.

The 10 Best Food Magazine Recipes from 2014...

1. Pork and Squash Stew with ChilesTender bites of pork in a savory broth with a warm, comforting heat. It's the perfect dish for winter -- and, as we wrote back in February, an ideal make-ahead dish.

4. Edamame-Miso Tuna Salad SandwichesThis is probably the one dish we've made the most since posting about it last year. The mix of miso, hot chile oil and edamame is a great new spin on tuna salad. We've made this (especially for lunch to take to work) more times than we can count.

5. Ayam Jeruk (Grilled Chicken and Toasted Coconut Salad)We debated whether to include this dish in our year-end roundup, because we'd made so many substitutions in the recipe. But who cares? This dish was to die for, and we're sure it's even better if you can find fresh galangal. And shaved coconut. And candelnuts. And Asian shallots. And Balinese long peppers...

6. Asian Marinated TomatoesThese tomatoes are really more of an accompaniment or a condiment than a stand-alone dish. But they're marvelous. If we may quote our own post from last summer: "Imagine if a bowl of salsa spent a semester abroad in Thailand, and got really into meditation and mystic Buddhism and lemongrass, and then came home and hopped up on your grilled chicken." Who doesn't want that??

7. Spiced Lamb BurgersNothing we made last year was as drool-worthy as these lamb burgers. As we said back in July, "The lamb is flavorful and full of wonderful spice from the coriander, cumin and cinnamon. The fat from the lamb melts into the pitas, soaking them with flavor and making them crispy and amazing." If you're not salivating at that, there may be something wrong with you.

8. Vietnamese Pork Chops with Pickled WatermelonIn August, we solidly declared this the "DISH. OF. THE. SUMMER." We stand by that. This salty/savory/sour/sweet/pungent/crispy/juicy dish is everything you want in a grilled entree.

9. The Barefoot Contessa's Goat Cheese Mashed PotatoesIt's highly possible that no dish we've featured has ever elicited a greater response than these potatoes that we made for our Fakesgiving test-run of recipes. We heard from countless -- countless! -- friends and family and Bitten Word readers who made these for Thanksgiving. And just about everyone has told us these are the best mashed potatoes they've ever made.

December 22, 2014

First, we hope you'll join us in congratulating all of our bakers who made the Cover-to-Cover Holiday Cookies Project such an amazing success. More than 500 bakers signed up to make 25 cookie recipes. That, friends, is a lot of cookies.

You can explore all the cookies by clicking the photos above (or the links below), but before you do that, let's give a few Cover-to-Cover Holiday Cookies Project Awards.

THE GOOD

All the bakers. Seriously -- we didn't give you a lot of time to complete this challenge, and hundreds of you rose to the occasion. Thank you so much for participating! We loved seeing how your cookies turned out.

Bakers who bought special equipment. This is above and beyond. A number of bakers shared that they purchased cookie presses and other equipment in order to make their assigned recipes. That is some serious dedication.

A winning cookie? We'd love to name a sure-fire hit among this crop of cookies. There's a lot to love -- and many bakers loved their cookies, but there doesn't seem to be a resounding hit with all the bakers. Can you pick a winner?

THE BAD AND THE UGLY

We made some mistakes! First, we sent the wrong Lebkuchenrecipe to the bakers who were making that cookie.Then we realized late in the game that the cookie we assigned from Saveur -- Sarah Bernhardt Cookies -- was in fact the wrong cookie and not in their December issue. Instead, we should have assigned these Icelandic Chocolate Cornflake Cookies. Maybe they're the hit cookie we've all been waiting for....

The Worst Recipe: We're going with Food & Wine's Gingersnap Sandwich Cookies. The accidental omission of 3 cups of flour in the online recipe gave our bakes big batches of goo. But hey, mistakes happen (see above). And it turns out that if you make them with the flour, they're a hit.

December 19, 2014

Okay, we don't know what the punchline is. But here's the point: When we prompted readers to join us in this Cover-to-Cover Holiday Cookie Project, we challenged you to be creative. To tell us about your cookie in just a couple sentences, but feel free to have fun with it. What might you eat with this cookie, we wondered? If your cookie were a celebrity, who would it be?

Boy, did you guys deliver! We have loved all your creative and pithy writeups about the cookies you made.

Today -- the fifth and final day of our weeklong Cover-to-Cover Holiday Cookie Project -- is no exception. The writeups for these five cookies include the aforementioned comparisons to Taylor, Kristin and Sen. Brown, along with cookies likened to "a Bollywood movie," "a French diva," and "a Nordic noir thriller."

December 18, 2014

Earlier this week, one of our commentors referred to herself and her friends -- and all the other folks involved in this Cover-to-Cover cookie project -- as the "Bitten Bakers."

How great is that?! We love the idea of a whole army of Bitten Bakers out there, making cookies and reporting back.

Well the Bitten Bakers were in full force for this, Day 4 of our weeklong cookie event. Today we've got some surprising peppermints, spendy pignolis, middle-of-the-road shortbread, rage-inducing pinwheels and a rugelach that is just ... well, you'll have to read for yourself.

December 17, 2014

But today -- Day 3 of our Cover-to-Cover Holiday Cookie Project -- we've got a group of tasty treats without the word "cookie" in sight.

We've got sandies and tassies aplenty.

We've got sandwiches and florentines galore.

You want noel balls? We've got plenty.

But who cares? No big deal.

We want mooooooorrrreee...

Okay, sorry for that brief interlude.

Anyway, today's crop of cookies-by-another-name includes some hits, some misses, and one recipe that turned into a greasy, messy disaster for everyone who tried it. (More than one reader used the words "disaster" and "nightmare.")